Sharia in action in Iraq: Two cities mobilize “fashion police” against Western-style dress

“Fashion police,” as in Iran. Is this what we fought for? “Young Iraqis face religious fashion crackdown,” by Lara Jakes for the Associated Press, September 3 (thanks to all who sent this in):

BAGHDAD (AP) – For much of Iraq’s youth, sporting blingy makeup, slicked-up hair and skintight jeans is just part of living the teenage dream. But for their elders, it’s a nightmare.

A new culture rift is emerging in Iraq, as young women replace shapeless cover-ups with ankle-baring skirts and tight blouses, while men strut around in revealing slacks and spiky haircuts. The relatively skimpy styles have prompted Islamic clerics in at least two Iraqi cities to mobilize local security guards as a “fashion police” in the name of protecting religious values.

“I see the way (older people) look at me – they don’t like it,” said Mayada Hamid, 32, wearing a pink leopard-print headscarf with jeans, a blue blouse and lots of sparkly eyeliner Sunday while shopping at the famous gold market in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Kazimiyah.

She rolled her eyes. “It’s just suppression.” So far, though, there are no reports of the police actually taking action.

This is a conflict playing out across the Arab world, where conservative Islamic societies grapple with the effects of Western influence, especially the most obvious – the way their young choose to dress.

The violations of old Iraqi norms have grown especially egregious, religious officials say, since the Aug. 20 end of Ramadan, Islam’s holy month. In the last two weeks, posters and banners have been hanging along the streets of Kazimiyah, sternly reminding women to wear an abaya – a long, loose black cloak that covers the body from shoulders to feet.

A similar warning came from Diwaniyah, a Shiite city about 130 kilometers (80 miles) south of the capital, where some posters have painted a red X over pictures of women wearing pants. Other banners praise women who keep their hair fully covered beneath a headscarf.

Religious officials speculate young Iraqis got carried away in celebrating the end of Ramadan and now need to be reined in.

“We support personal freedoms, but there are places that have a special status,” said Sheik Mazin Saadi, a Shiite cleric from Kazimiyah, home to the double gold-domed shrine that is one of Shiite Islam’s holiest sites.

He said the area’s residents lobbied Baghdad’s local government to ban unveiled women from walking around the neighborhood, including its sprawling open-air market that attracts people from across Iraq.

“The women started to follow to this order,” Saadi said.

Government leaders in Baghdad say they’ve issued no such ban and ordered some of the warning posters removed. The rule “is only for the female visitors who go inside the shrine itself,” said Sabar al-Saadi, chairman of the Baghdad provincial council’s legal committee. “We think that wearing a veil for women in Iraq is a personal decision.”

Muslim women generally wear headscarves or veils in public out of modesty, and female worshippers are required to wear an abaya or other loose robes in shrines and mosques.

But over the last several years, following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and the fall of dictator Saddam Hussein, Western styles have crept into Iraq’s fashion palate. Form-fitting clothing, stylish shoes and men’s edgy hairstyles are commonly seen on the street. Some younger women have even begun to forgo the hijab, or headscarf.

Their parents – and their parents’ parents – fear Western influence will drown out Iraq’s centuries of culture and respect for religion….

Several young adults strolling the Kazimiyah gold market on Sunday accused the religious class of trying to pull Iraq back to the dark ages, a sentiment that human rights activist Hana Adwar echoed.

“It is an aggression on the rights of not only religious minorities, but also on secular Muslim women who do not want to wear veils,” said Adwar, head of the Baghdad-based Iraqi Hope Association….

But some women have been handed tissues at Kazimiyah checkpoints and told to wipe off their makeup before entering the market, said resident Hakima Mahdi, 59.

“This is very good,” she said, smiling broadly, sheathed in a black cloak with an extra abaya covering her head. “It’s respect to the imam, respect to this holy place.”

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